Author: Vincent Abbate

Sideman Special: Doug Corcoran (Pt. 2)

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Under The Spell Of JD McPherson

An interview with Doug Corcoran (Pt. 2)

Words: Vincent Abbate / Photos: Amanda Devitt

Having traveled in blues circles for over 20 years now, I’ve seen the different ways musicians react to the purist attitude held by many long-time blues enthusiasts: They either conform, stick to their creative guns, move on to another genre or pack it in completely. While conversing with multi-instrumentalist Doug Corcoran for the better part of an hour, I learned something. Rockabilly fans can be every bit as conservative.

There’s a difference, though: On the style-conscious rockabilly scene, purism has as much to do with having the right image as with the music itself.

“The really hardcore rockabillies don’t care how good the music is. It’s more about if the band wears the right things. Are they playing vintage instruments? Do they have an upright bass? It’s more about what it looks like, does it fit their lifestyle.”

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Sideman Special: Doug Corcoran (Pt. 1)

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Under The Spell Of JD McPherson

An interview with Doug Corcoran

Words: Vincent Abbate / Photos: Jimmy Sutton, Amanda Devitt

Some musicians crave the spotlight. They’re born to raise hell, jump security barriers and take twenty-foot leaps into the crowd. Others just show up and do their jobs without any fanfare. Saxophonist Richard Oppenheim, who has blown his horn alongside Otis Rush, Johnny Winter, Marvin Gaye and dozens of others, put it this way: “There’s a certain comfort in being a sideman. (…) Basically I shut up and play.”

Chicago product Doug Corcoran would likely echo that sentiment. Though his steady hand on guitar and occasional saxophone flourishes are integral to the ever-evolving, neo-rockabilly sound of JD McPherson’s five-piece band, Corcoran is a stoic figure onstage who shuns extraneous motion. In conversation, he’s deliberate and self-effacing. “JD’s a lot harder to get an interview with. I think there’s about six hoops you have to jump through.” It’s almost as if he’s apologizing for being the one doing the talking – without actually saying “So you’re stuck with me.”

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WoW #15: The Walter Davis Project

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The Walter Davis Project

A few days ago I was preparing  to interview Christian Rannenberg, one of the world’s finest blues piano players, for the Talkin’ Blues show in Cologne. Chris lives in Berlin and I hadn’t seen him for a number of years. So I did some digging to find out what he’d been up to. My most pleasant discovery was The Walter Davis Project.

Chris had told me about his intention to do a Walter Davis tribute album as far back as 2006. He’s been an admirer of Davis – the Mississippi-born pianist who recorded roughly 150 sides for the Victor and Bluebird labels in the 30s, 40s and 50s – ever since first sitting down to play the blues on a piano keyboard. As the initiator and driving force behind the project, he wound up investing a good deal of his own money on sessions with Billy Boy Arnold, Charlie Musselwhite and several others. But the recordings lay around gathering dust until Rannenberg and harmonica player Bob Corritore crossed paths at a memorial celebration for mutual friend Louisiana Red in 2012.

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WIB Live Slideshow: Blues Caravan 2018

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Blues Caravan 2018

w/ Mike Zito, Bernard Allison & Vanja Sky

@ Harmonie, Bonn, Germany

Photos: Marcella auf der Heide

The 13th edition of Ruf Records’ annual Blues Caravan packs serious firepower. The pair of blues vets who are the tour’s main draw, Mike Zito and Bernard Allison, brought the pain at their January performance in Bonn, Germany – Zito displaying an uncanny ability to create tension and beauty through his deftly executed guitar licks, the ever-dependable Allison delivering the punch on familiar tunes including “Life Is A Bitch” and “Rocket 88.” Yet newcomer Vanja Sky was no slouch herself. The young lady from Zagreb displayed an easy, natural and appealing stage presence during her evening-opening set, showing off surprisingly rugged pipes and confident vocal phrasing. With drummer Mario Dawson and bassist Roger Inniss holding down the rhythm throughout, honestly, what could go wrong?

Our two-minute slideshow features photos from the show in Bonn and a cut from Vanja Sky’s debut album Bad Penny featuring Zito and Allison on vocals and guitar.

WIB Extra: The Finnish Blues Awards

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The Finnish Blues Awards

January 13th, 2018 @ Nosturi, Helsinki

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

You never know where the blues is gonna take you.

Last December, when a guitarist friend invited me to the 2018 Finnish Blues Awards, I thought: Why the heck not? Helsinki is just a two-and-a-half-hour flight from my home base in Germany. Any chance to see a new city and meet a new culture first-hand – even for 24 hours – is a chance I grab.

And I knew this much: There’s no shortage of capable bands in Finland. Like the Wentus Blues Band, who I first stumbled upon 15 years ago in Dresden. Or the combo led by young singer Ina Forsman, part of the Ruf Records Blues Caravan 2016. Leading the pack is slide guitar goddess Erja Lyytinen, who has a particularly strong following in England and is a bona fide celebrity at home. There’s also Erja’s long-time (now former) right-hand man Davide Floreno – my host – a rock solid guitar player in his own right.

But beyond that, as I sat inside the black Mercedes sedan carrying me from Helsinki’s Vantaa Airport to the city center, I really had no idea what to expect. The first impressions were of a flat, barren, snow-covered landscape deep in a wintertime slumber. And boy does it get dark early. By four p.m., while I settled into my hotel room overlooking the loading cranes in the Port of Helsinki, evening had already taken hold.

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WoW #14: Terry Evans – “I’ll Be Your Shelter (In The Time Of Storm)”

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Terry Evans –

“I’ll Be Your Shelter (In The Time Of Storm)”

Terry Evans, who passed away on January 20th  at the age of 80, had one of those phone book voices. You know: Open to any page in the phone book, hand it to Terry, have him sing it and wait for the goose bumps to come.

He was almost 70 years old when we spoke in 2005, coinciding with the release of his Fire In The Feeling album. At the time, he felt the voice he considered to be God-given growing gradually weaker.

“It’s not as strong now as it was 20 years ago,” said the man who’s first success came in the 1960s, backing singer Jewel Akens as a member of The Turnarounds. “Through experience, I know how to use my voice. But there are notes I can’t hit anymore that I used to hit effortlessly. Now it’s an effort.”

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WoW #13: Popa Chubby – “Back To New York City”

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Popa Chubby – “Back To New York City”

Time to kickstart a new year at Who Is Blues and to do some looking back forward.

Picture me craning my neck from my birthplace on the south shore of Long Island to catch a glimpse of big city life in Manhattan. I didn’t much like the blandness of the suburbs growing up, so I made the move at 18, getting to know the heart of The Beast intimately during the drab, depressed, rodent-infested 1980s.

At the same time, Bronx native Ted Horowitz (aka Popa Chubby) was making a name for himself as a singer and guitarist at gloriously rowdy places like Dan Lynch’s Blues Bar on Second Avenue and 14th Street and Manny’s Car Wash up on Third Avenue and 88th Street. Chubby hosted a blues jam there before launching into a recording career that has seen him release roughly two dozen albums since the early 90s.

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WoW #12: Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers – “Sadie”

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Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers – “Sadie”

“They were inseparable, and they played together like brothers, sensing each other’s musical twists and turns before they happened, feeding energy and good spirits from one to the other.”

Thus wrote Bruce Iglauer of Alligator Records of singer/guitarist Theodore Roosevelt “Hound Dog” Taylor, guitarist Brewer Phillips and drummer Ted Harvey – the band of brothers who inspired him to start a record label.

“They fought like brothers too,” recalled Iglauer in 1982, “as they crisscrossed the country from gig to gig in Hound Dog’s old Ford station wagon, arguing constantly about who was the best lover, who had the best woman, who was the best mayor Chicago ever had, who was or wasn’t out of tune the night before. The arguments weren’t always in fun, either. From time to time a knife appeared, and finally even a gun.”

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WIB Interview: Larkin Poe

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Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves

A Q&A with Larkin Poe

Words: Vincent Abbate

If you happen to be one of the 250,000 people following Larkin Poe on social media, you probably noticed more and more blues turning up in those little spur-of-the-moment videos they post on a regular basis.

Megan and Rebecca Lovell – the Georgia-born sisters that comprise Larkin Poe – share much of their creative life online, letting listeners in on what shapes them musically. In the past, you might have seen them experimenting with the Allman Brothers or Fleetwood Mac. More recently, seminal bluesmen like Son House and Robert Johnson have been getting the Larkin Poe treatment. The duo’s backstage video of House’s “Preachin’ Blues” has over 50,000 views on YouTube. An a capella version of “Black Betty” filmed inside a shower stall has surpassed 80,000.

By sinking their spades deep into America’s musical soil – always with respect, but with no qualms about making the classics their own – these two very talented siblings have obviously struck a chord.   Continue reading →

WoW #11: John Lee Hooker – “Tupelo Blues”

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John Lee Hooker – “Tupelo Blues”

The dreary wet weather this morning has me thinking about rain songs. “Backwater Blues.” “Didn’t It Rain.” “When The Levee Breaks.” Flood songs.

There have been more than a few in the blues. The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, which took the lives of 246 people in seven states, is said to have inspired “When The Levee Breaks,” recorded by Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe two years later. It may also have provided the backdrop for John Lee Hooker’s “Tupelo Blues.” Hooker would have been about 10 years old at the time. Old enough to remember. Some sources say he was recalling another catastrophic Mississippi flood in 1936.

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